Any way out of Loss Of Vehicle here?
I suspect this Progress is lost. Any critical cargo aboard?This is now not good at all - ATV gone, Cygnus grounded, and I suspect a Progress grounding while an investigation is performed. Luckily we have an HTV this year, else Dragon would have to shoulder it all.
Quote from: AJA on 04/28/2015 01:19 pm1. Off nominal orbitOrbit is nominal - TLEs provided were incorrect.
1. Off nominal orbit
Nothing but Progress can replenish ISS propellent, is that correct?
I wonder how long the spacecraft can survive in this nominal orbit before it decays. A week at most?
This is now not good at all - ATV gone, Cygnus grounded, and I suspect a Progress grounding while an investigation is performed. Luckily we have an HTV this year, else Dragon would have to shoulder it all.
I doubt that - all Progress engines can use all propellant that is onboard (including a portion that it's supposed to deliver to ISS for refueling), so it's very unlikely there is a danger of depleting it anytime soon (the engine has to fire for hour or so to burn through all propellant).The reason is probably has to do with not making a problem worse as at such spin rate mechanical damage is possible.
All Progress engines can use all propellant aboard? Same tanks for RCS as well as the main engine?
UPDATE (9:35 a.m. EDT): Russian flight controllers have continued to try and recover command capability with the ISS Progress 59 cargo craft this morning. The most recent ground pass started at 9:20 a.m. EDT and flight controllers reported no change in the issues with receiving telemetry data from the unmanned craft. The Russian flight control team attempted to command the vehicle over four orbits flying over Russian ground sites with no success. The next series of ground station passes is expected to resume late Tuesday evening. Teams are standing down on the Thursday docking attempt while Russian teams continue to analyze data and develop a troubleshooting plan going forward.